When an author publishes an update to their module hosted on the gallery it should provide an option to push a notification to their configured social media accounts.

So an author configures Twitter and LinkedIn profiles on their account/profile. A configuration option within the module being published should allow for a setting that will push a notification to their social media, on their behalf, announcing a new release of that module.

I am trying to update Pester on Windows 2016 to 4.x because the preshipped Pester 3.4.0 emits a note about the depreciation of the -quiet switch when I use the quiet switch. This get's scooped into stdout when executing via AWS SSM remote commands. Version 3.x complains it does not understand "-Show None".

So far so bad, but when I go to remove the 3.4.0 version (with admin rights) from: 'c:\program files\windowspowershell\modules\pester\3.4.0' I get errors because only TrustedInstaller has permissions.

If this scenario wasn't horrible enough, putting preinstalled modules under Windows Resource Protection really throws it over the top.

Could someone please make sure that preinstalled modules can be *replaced* cleanly? Or don't preinstall them?

I am trying to update Pester on Windows 2016 to 4.x because the preshipped Pester 3.4.0 emits a note about the depreciation of the -quiet switch when I use the quiet switch. This get's scooped into stdout when executing via AWS SSM remote commands. Version 3.x complains it does not understand "-Show None".

The issues you have encountered can be frustrating, sorry that is the case for you.

Moving this to Survey to try to gauge the scope of the problem for users generally.

We are somewhat limited by security requirements: what ships with Windows will always be tagged so that nothing can replace it easily unless it is signed by Microsoft. While Pester is part of Windows, it is not owned or developed by Microsoft, so updates delivered via the Gallery cannot be Microsoft signed.

Once the Gallery version is installed on a system, -SkipPublisherCheck is no longer required for future updates. That first experience, however, is bad.

This leaves us with a dilemma: do we stop shipping Pester in with PowerShell in the future, or do we continue to provide the feature set knowing users who update from the Gallery will encounter these issues?

Looking for feedback from as many users as are willing to respond.
Thanks

The issues you have encountered can be frustrating, sorry that is the case for you.

Moving this to Survey to try to gauge the scope of the problem for users generally.

We are somewhat limited by security requirements: what ships with Windows will always be tagged so that nothing can replace it easily unless it is signed by Microsoft. While Pester is part of Windows, it is not owned or developed by Microsoft, so updates delivered via the Gallery cannot be Microsoft signed.

Once the Gallery version is installed on a system, -SkipPublisherCheck is no longer required for future updates. That first experience, however, is bad.

This leaves us with a dilemma: do we stop shipping Pester in with PowerShell in the future, or do we continue to provide the feature set knowing users who update from the Gallery will encounter these issues?

It is currently hard to get notifications when PowerShell modules get updated. It would be nice if there would be an RSS feed for new versions of a package, then my RSS reader could notify me that a new version is available and I could take action.

When using the dark theme in ISE, a collapsed region is hardly visible because the font color is black and the background darkblue. There is no way the set the colors for a collapse region in the theme editor.

Add a PowerShell module to manage Windows Updates like you can now with the GUI. Like checking for updates, installing all updates, or a selection of updates, creating a report of pending updates, etc. The Windows Update options in the Server Configuration Manager (sconfig) are very limited.

We don’t own the creation of modules for operating system features. I’ll mark this as Survey so we can provide this information to the WU team, but you might also want to consider filing this in the Windows 10 Feedback Hub. Also, see the community-created PSWindowsUpdate link below :)

This extremely useful feature sould also be implemented in the on-premises DSC pull server. Especially because the needed functionality must alread be in the WMF 5 as nothing more than WMF 5 is needed to use the Azure Automation DSC service.

This would be huge improvment for the DSC pull server.

Thx!

In Azure Automation DSC the whole MOF file gets encrypted without the need to manually issue certificates for every node and then to collect the public keys.

This extremely useful feature sould also be implemented in the on-premises DSC pull server. Especially because the needed functionality must alread be in the WMF 5 as nothing more than WMF 5 is needed to use the Azure…

I've tried several ways to capture the PowerShell documentation into a single PDF file which I find much more convenient instead of clicking around a Microsoft site. Acrobat just locks up. I've never seen it behave this way before.

It places PowerShell out of reach for those of us trying to learn new tools.

Print to PDF is inadequate because webpage links are missing and on the PowerShell pages, the side-bar links are missing.
- Acrobat Printer
- Microsoft Print to PDF

I've tried several ways to capture the PowerShell documentation into a single PDF file which I find much more convenient instead of clicking around a Microsoft site. Acrobat just locks up. I've never seen it behave this way before.

It places PowerShell out of reach for those of us trying to learn new tools.

I’ll pass this on to the document infrastructure people, but in the meantime all of our documentation content is at https://github.com/PowerShell/PowerShell-Docs/ . you can clone that repo in GIT or download it as a ZIP, and there might be a markdown-to-PDF converter that can help you from there?

Would be interested in understanding the scenario where you are using the cmdlet & specifying the reason for rebooting. To explain: our previous assumption was that users would EITHER use the server UI that captured this information, OR use the cmdlet (often so they didn’t need to supply that reason text).
So, what would help is to understand in what situations the cmdlet is being used and specifying the reboot explanation is desirable.

Currently, the DSC reporting server only offers the ability to query a single node at a time. I think for any environment, it would be crucial to get a list of the last reported compliance for all nodes. I'd really like to see this feature added in a future release.

Get-Help should ignore the .txt files (must have changed in 4.0), but it does not. Instead, it finds both .txt and .help.txt. So, when you run Get-Help, instead of displaying help for the topic, it lists the duplicate base names.

But, we had a similar problem in a module when we shipped a file with corrected capitalization in the base name.

about_FileName.help.txt
about_filename.help.txt

We might want to tweak Get-Help so that when it detects an exact duplicate base name, it displays the content in the newest file.

Also, in modules, Get-Help should display the help only for the version of the module that it's processing. That would allow module authors to update help topic names without causing unintended duplicates.

At some point in the 5.0 time period, Update-Help installed About topic files in the en-US directory for the PSWorkflow module with .txt (not .help.txt) file name extensions.

e.g. about_Foreach-Parallel.txt

Later, this was fixed and Update-Help installed the same help files in the same directory with the (correct) ".help.txt" file name extension.

e.g. about_Foreach-Parallel.help.txt

Now, the PSWorkflow\en-US directory has 9 pairs of files that are identical except for the file name extension.

The PowerShell gallery should allow users to create "lists" of modules (think of it as an Amazon wish list).

A user could create a "favorites" list and add modules and scripts to it to keep track of their favorites over time (maybe even "subscribe" to notifications of new releases of things on the list).

A user could also create a "user management modules" list or a "stretching PowerShell's limits" list or a "should have been in the box" list, or a "things I use in my prompt" list ...

But most importantly, users should be able to SHARE those lists, and other users should be able to download and install a list (maybe something like Install-Module -ListName MyPrompt -Author Jaykul).

Additionally, if you could show a count of how many users have added the module to at least one list, and a count of how many lists it's on, these would potentially be useful non-download metrics for popularity.

It would be awesome if there was a way to get additional sorting metrics for the gallery (downloads in the last week, vs. all-time, perhaps), and this would give you several possible additional metrics (users, lists, and the "all time" vs "last month" or "last week" to get hotness).

The PowerShell gallery should allow users to create "lists" of modules (think of it as an Amazon wish list).

A user could create a "favorites" list and add modules and scripts to it to keep track of their favorites over time (maybe even "subscribe" to notifications of new releases of things on the list).

A user could also create a "user management modules" list or a "stretching PowerShell's limits" list or a "should have been in the box" list, or a "things I use in my prompt" list ...

You can now use Count or Length on any object, even if it didn’t have the property. If the object didn’t have a Count or Length property, it will will return 1 (or 0 for $null). Objects that have Count or Length properties will continue to work as they always have.

Instead of having to passing in the Project Name for each call I would like to store it in an environment variable. When I do it would allow me to call Get-Info with no parameters and the value in the environment variable would be used. If the environment variable does not exist or is empty the user would be prompted for a value if it was not provided on the command line.
I tried writing the code as I have above but it never seemed to work. Even when the environment variable was set I was always prompted for projectName.
I know I could remove the mandatory attribute and add code in my function to set to the environment variable if it exists. But it would be much easier if what I am proposing was possible.

When defining a function, I would like to use an environment variable as the default value. If the environment variable exists and has a value that value will be used. For example,

Instead of having to passing in the Project Name for each call I would like to store it in an environment variable. When I do it would allow me to call Get-Info with no parameters and the value in the environment variable would be used. If the environment variable does not exist or is empty the user…

It would be nice to be able to delete a module that hasn't been downloaded yet and is unlisted. I made a mistake in publishing a module which I unlisted before anyone downloaded it. There is no benefit to me or anyone having it remain in the gallery.

None of the follwing published reasons for disallowing deletions apply:

1. Other items may depend on that item. Those items might not necessarily be in this gallery.
2. Ensures that folks using items without committing the same will not be broken.
3. Helps ensure that important community owned items are not mass deleted.

For 1 - nothing depends on this, if someone does download it they're being facetious and just going to be wasting their time.

For 2 - Not sure what this means, but if it has something to do with preventing resubmissions of the same version number, that would actually be good for me since no one has downloaded it yet anyway and I could just publish that version without having to increment it.

For 3 - It's only important if it's been downloaded, but it hasn't yet, so let me delete it.

It would be nice to be able to delete a module that hasn't been downloaded yet and is unlisted. I made a mistake in publishing a module which I unlisted before anyone downloaded it. There is no benefit to me or anyone having it remain in the gallery.

None of the follwing published reasons for disallowing deletions apply:

1. Other items may depend on that item. Those items might not necessarily be in this gallery.
2. Ensures that folks using items without committing the same will not be broken.
3. Helps ensure that important community owned items are not mass…

We understand the ask, & are leaving it as Survey to gauge the interest level.

For now, you can use the Contact Us link to specify the item & version that you want deleted. Specify why you feel that this is something that should not be left in the Gallery, providing more detail is likely to help.
The Gallery operations team will investigate and, if it meets what is actually a very high bar, will delete it.

It would be a great motivation for young admins (e.g. students) to start learn PowerShell if it out of a box has commands concerning desktop computers in a workgroup environment. I think of managing local users, groups, dealing with screen resolution or power management, system updates - just simple stuff for everyday use.

It would certainly be cool, but we’re not really investing in Out-GridView at this point in time. I’ll leave this open as a Survey to see if the demand surpasses our bar (though I’d caveat that demand would have to be fairly high).